Best seats in the house.

There are a number of things that we love about our house.  We love the high ceilings, the ground floor laundry, the fenced yard, the deck, and the seating we get for varoud fourth of July events.  The first year that we moved in we thought the wonderful fireworks displays that we enjoyed from our deck were a fluke, but lucky for us the excitment has been annual event.  We're still not sure how many of the multiple points of fiery splendor are professional (and legal) shows versus the many backyard pyrotechnics that light up our skies, but we enjoy them all, and there is no show we would rather take in (who can beat fireworks without the traffic and bugs???).  And as if the yearly display on the fourth wasn't good enough, this year we got an extra treat - great seats (minus the traffic) to the Blue Angels air show.  The show was the first in this area in many years and was held at Willow Run Airport, and we got to see all the major tricks, and even got some very close (and very loud) views, right from our own driveway.  Several times they made their turn right over our house before heading back to the show.  Thankfully Calvin is a really good napper so he got enough sleep (regardless of the noise) that we were still able to head back to Ann Arbor for the last evening of Top of the Park, and an iced coffee from Border's.

Strange Fruit

We spent both last night and tonight in downtown Ann Arbor taking in the sites, smells, tastes, and sounds of the Top of the Park Summer Festival.  We look forward to this local annual tradition and try to make it to the month long festival evenings as often as possible, and both the weather and the entertainment this weekend made it the perfect opportunity.  Who can pass up the chance to watch people performing a modern theatrical dance routine from atop 4 meter fiber glass poles?  We enjoyed them enough the first night to take them in again tonight, this time from much closer seats, and the second time was the charm - being almost underneath the performers made all the difference and Calvin even sat still for 15 out of the 20 minutes of the performance, sitting in his stroller, bouncing up and down in time with the music (yes, we swear that he is already developing a good sense of rhythm), his eyes glued to those strange people high over his head, a wide smile glued on his face.  This wonderful performing group goes by the name of Strange Fruit, appropriate since strange would definitely describe it - strange and really cool.  Coincidentally, that is probably what Calvin thought of the raspberry sorbet that his gram was feeding him - with each tiny bite he would shiver, then giggle, then ask for more.  That continued for only a few bites, though, before he decided that darting in and out of the sidewalk traffic was way more fun and got him way more attention from his adoring fans (read: strangers walking by).

There are, of course, lots more Strange Fruit pictures in this week's photo album. 

Halloween down on the farm

Thankfully last week's snow turned out to be just a teaser, and today a bit of true fall visited the area:  bright blue sky, wispy clouds, temperatures nearing 60, and a light, crisp autumn breeze.  We were on our way to the grocery store to stock our pantry and deck our front porch with pumpkins when we decided to completely reschedule our day in order to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  What were we thinking, trying to buy pumpkins from the grocery store when there is a famous pumpkin patch literally two minutes down the street from us???  So instead of cleaning and lazing about after unloading groceries (sans pumpkins) we headed off to Wiard's Orchard for Calvin's first taste of this fun fall activity.  What an amazing way to spend a fall day!  There were animals (which Calvin is too young to pet), basic carnival games and activities (which Calvin is too young to take part in), and, of course, fresh cider and donuts (which Calvin is too young to ingest).  What Calvin could do was play with pumpkins, and this he found fascinating - until he found it exhausting, after which he merely conked out and slept through the rest of our visit.  But whether he enjoyed it or not, we did, and we even came home with a small family of pumpkins (not from the national chain store, but from our local centennial+ farm) that we chose directly from the patch (the Halloween equivalent of cutting down your own Christmas tree, just warmer).  And fall really lends itself to beautiful pictures the way that no other season does, so we also came home with a plethora of photographs, a favored handful of which we have posted in Calvin's nineteenth week album to share (yes, those are just a handful).  We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Beautiful weekend for celebrations

On Saturday we received two "prank" phone messages, one on Cortney's cell phone and one on our answering machine.  We're not talking heavy breathing here.  Worse, they were, quite simply, the Michigan State Fight Song.  We overcame the horror of said messages quickly, or at least by 5:00pm.  We won't dwell too long on the victory, just long enough to rub it in for the State fans that LOST on Saturday.  Now, if the State players had even a touch of the athletic talent that Calvin displays here, it might have been a different story...

Sunday was an all together different kind of celebration.  For months our church has been planning an "all church supper" to celebrate the beginning of a new season and a new stewardship kickoff.  We have to admit that when we heard they were planning said supper to be held in the great out of doors in the middle of a Michigan October we were skeptical.  We were, however, pleasantly surprised by the Indian Summer weather, with sun and 70 degree weather.  This was a celebration not only for the church as a whole, but for Cortney and her committee, which was in charge of planning and putting on the event, and her fellow deacons, who were challenged to bring in and host at least 300 of the church's almost 2,000 members.  Well, the event, complete with meals served at the tables and a live band, went off without a hitch, and over 500 members attended!  Cortney hosted 14 people at her table alone, and Jon found himself acting as part of the entertainment - not with a piano, with Calvin.  Most people cannot resist cooing at a cuddly baby!  As our pastor noted to us over supper, many people have begun to refer to Calvin as the church's baby.

And what is celebration without cake?  Since Jon's birthday is October 10th we also took advantage of the beautiful weekend to sneak in double birthday celebrations.  On Saturday night we celebrated with Jon's parents, and enjoyed a wonderful post-game tailgate style dinner (mmm...) and a fantastic homemade carrot cake (Jon's favorite).  On Sunday night we celebrated with Cortney's family, where Jon shared the candles on a yummy chocolate ice cream cake with Curtis, who shares the same birthday.  So we have a wonderful football team (shh...don't burst our bubble just yet), a wonderful church, and wonderful families - that was a lot to celebrate.

Yep, we're townies

With the Art Fair looming around the corner, many of the actual locals, or "townies" in A2-speak, are packing up and heading out, if they haven't already. Then there are those who choose to stay and fight for their rights to the town - hence the second annual "townie" party. Well, even though we're now in the outlying township, we still feel like we've never moved away, and being a "townie" is just a state of mind, anyway. So, it was off to the "Ingalls Mall" (who knew that space in front of Rackham had a name?) to celebrate with the rest of the bunch. It turns out that townies are a weird crowd, from the barefoot hippies to the standard local character Shakey Jake to the absolutely unusual at-least-80-year-old man wearing a white top hat but no shirt. But we guess that we fit in alright - we had a dancing baby on the tabletop, after all. Curtis joined us for dinner as well. We all felt badly for the Dutch carillon player up in Burton Tower whose concert of classical bell tolling had to compete for sonic attention with the RFD Boys. Ah, well - we'll have to make it back to another concert in that series later in the summer. We topped off the night by passing the near-empty not-so-local Ben & Jerry's to wait in a local line at local Stucchi's for a local root beer float. In the words of Curtis, holler at your local!